Halliburton Boardroom Massacre

I joined the army when high school was through
I didn’t know what else to do
Thought I’d take care of that traveling jones
Then maybe take out some student loans
They sent me away to the land of the dead
Where I didn’t know a word that they said
I got shot at a lot, I was nearly toast
But it’s the ones that I killed that hurts the most

Most of the time I didn’t know what was going on
The rest of the time I knew there was something going wrong
Every reason we were there turned out to be a lie
I thought of that each time I saw another person die
I was supposed to stay for a year, they kept me for four
By the time I got back home no one knew me anymore
Of the man I once was there didn’t seem to be a trace
And when I looked me in the mirror I didn’t recognize my face

I wasn’t home too long before the time that I fell ill
It was like the air was thick as mud and I ached enough to kill
I didn’t know I’d been fighting in a nuclear war
DU was in my blood and I was knocking on death’s door
I can’t tell you how it felt to be betrayed at every turn
Like the earth was spinning backwards, like my heart began to burn
Like I had to do something while I still had the strength to stand
While I still could run with a machine gun in my hand

I thought of Halliburton and the military brass
And the things they get away with all for their ruling class
But I’m not a pawn and I can’t just let it be
And if I’m gonna die, I’m gonna take some of them fuckers with me
I’ll spare you the details, I did what I had to do
There’s a boardroom blown to hell and soon I will be, too
You can say I lost it, you can say that I’m insane
But may no one ever say that my death was in vain

“Halliburton Boardroom Massacre” first appeared as “Boardroom” on the 2005 Soundclick release, Waiting for the Fall. In 2006 it appeared, with band, as the title track of the CD. In 2008 it also appeared on the live CD, the Commons.

The Halliburton Boardroom Massacre has not happened. But a hell of a lot of other massacres have happened. Often they are committed by troubled war veterans, such as Timothy McVeigh. It occurred to me that someday, some soldier coming home from a war, while dying of chemical exposure after returning home, might just decide to commit a massacre of people who are actually directly responsible for their sorry state of affairs. I figured I’d write a song about it preemptively. (During the Bush administration, being preemptive was all the rage.)